


i would whisper you a riot if you'd listen

by gingerbread man (xphantomhive)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dom/sub, Emotional Sex, F/M, M/M, Slice of Life, a whole fucking lot i'm serious, john is quiet during sex, ps this has a lot of sex in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 15:33:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6200824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xphantomhive/pseuds/gingerbread%20man
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You love who they are, but you couldn't love them if you tried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i would whisper you a riot if you'd listen

The first one isn’t just a one night stand.

Her name is Vriska Serket. You have AP Biology together, and she draws tiny spiders in the corners of your papers and copies your homework. She has blonde hair with one cerulean streak in it, blue eyes the color of her lipstick and the ocean, and a lip piercing. She’s the kind of girl your dad would’ve told you to steer clear of if you were still in high school, but you’re in college now, and your dad is five-hundred miles away but Vriska isn’t.

You ask her on a date while you’re out to lunch one day, and she spits her water out. You blink a few times, hope that wasn’t a bad sign, and clean your glasses off with your shirt. “Why, John! Do you think this is any proper way to court a lady? Asking her out over a plate of sesame chicken from a crappy Chinese place? What would your father think if he heard of this?” She replies, grinning at you with teeth that are almost too sharp to be human.

“So that’s a yes?” You respond. You’re fidgeting in your seat, wringing your hands, twirling your fork around. She taps her chin for a moment, like she’s contemplating an answer to give. When she starts stroking her upper lip as though she has a mustache, you realize she’s just kidding around with you, and you let yourself smile. “Yeah, it’s a yes.”

Her grin grows, if that’s possible, and she says, “Took you long enough, doofus.”

You take her to the movies and tell her to get whatever snacks she wants. She gets a large popcorn, three boxes of Sour Patch Kids, and a blue raspberry icee. You nearly break your bank trying to pay for it all (fucking movie theater prices) but the smile on her face while she stuffs the boxes of Sour Patch Kids into her pockets makes it worth the trouble.

Halfway through the movie, she takes the incentive to hold your hand. You tangle your fingers with hers and squeeze. She doesn’t turn to face you, not once, but you can see the smile on her face under the gleam of the movie screen. Once the movie ends and you’re in the stuffy lobby full of screaming kids, she’s still holding your hand, and she leans close and whispers, “Let’s go back to my place. My roommate is out for the night, it’ll just be you and me.”

When she pulls back, you’re laughing nervously, scratching the back of your neck with your free hand. She rolls her eyes at your antics and tugs you along behind her, pushing through the thick crowd of people and flipping off the ones who complain. She drops your hand and shooshes you to the passenger's seat, and once you’re both in the car and buckled up she grabs your hand over the center console.

You look at her for the entire drive to her apartment. She’s pretty and her hair falls over her shoulders just right, but you can’t see a future with her. You don’t see yourself settling down with her. You can’t see her having kids with you, and you can’t see yourself getting a job to support her in those kids. Yes, she’s quite a sight to see - but you don’t see this lasting very long.

You don’t have sex with her that night. You fall asleep in her bed in nothing but a pair of boxers with your head against her breasts, but you don’t do much more than kiss. You don’t do anything until two nights later, when she yanks your boxers off and replies to your startled expression, “I’m tired of waiting, and I’d bet you are too.”

You don’t do much work other than lay back on the sheets. She pinches the condom and slides it over you, she lubes you and herself up, she slides down onto you, and she sets a tempo for herself to follow. The most you do is grab her hips and buck up to meet her thrusts, but she’s the one who leans down to kiss you, breasts squeezed against your chest.

She’s beautiful, you think. You’re in the dark but she’s highlighted by the moonlight streaming through the window, and you see it all - her red face, blonde hair stuck to her forehead by sweat that’s dripping down her face and onto her hands, which are pressed to your shoulders (her nails are digging in a little, but you don’t mind), and blue eyes that seem to _glow_ in the darkness. But you still can’t see a future with her, and you know this isn’t going to last much longer.

She finishes with a high wail, but your own completion is a lot quieter. She isn’t the first person you’ve done it with, probably won’t be the last, and you know from past experiences that you’re quiet in bed. She rolls off of you and props herself up against the pillows, lights a cigarette and starts smoking it even though she knows how much you hate it when she does that. “I think we should break up,” you tell her, but you refuse to meet her eyes. “It just isn’t going to work out.”

She snorts, and you feel her breath wash over your face. You feel bile raise in your throat when the smoke gets stuck in your nostrils. “Not surprised. Get your shit on and get out.”

You get your shit on and get out.

;;

Two, three, four, five, six, and seven aren’t exactly one night stands, but you only date them for a short time before you break their hearts.

Two is Vriska’s sister. Her name is Aranea Serket and you have psychology class with her. She lets you copy her work and gives you the correct answers to the tests. Her hair is blonde like Vriska’s was but it’s cut a lot shorter, and her eyes are the same color as Vriska’s but her lipstick is black. She has no piercings. She’s very clean-cut, and you think your dad would be proud of you for dating a girl like her.

You only take her on one date. Your relationship is a brief tryst of stolen kisses and longing looks, and you have sex with her three times. Unlike Vriska, she doesn’t take control; she asks you if you’ll do it, with hazy half-lidded eyes under long lashes. You prefer not to be the dominant one when you have sex - you prefer to be taken control of. But she asks, and you listen, because she’s always so kind and compliant to you and she’s got the kindest heart you’ve ever known - the kindest heart you ever will, probably.

So you take over, you plow her into the mattress and try your best to play the dominant role. But it isn’t working for you, and after the third time, you’re laying in bed with her and she’s wrapped in your arms and panting against your chest and you say, “I think we need to quit this.”

She nods, and breaks out of your grip. She leaves without another word. You don’t mind.

Three is the girl who works at the Humane Society a few blocks from your apartment. Her name is Nepeta Leijon and she has short blonde hair and olive green eyes, and you flirt with her while you’re buying your friend a cat for their birthday. She giggles and bats at your chest when you tell a knock knock joke. You hate that you can tell how innocent she is, and you hate that you know what you’ll do to her.

You only have sex once. She’s an entirely different person in the bedroom; she’s commanding and controlling, and she tells you exactly what to do, tells you how she wants it, when she wants it, and that she wants it done her way. You’re in love with how she is, but not with her. “This was only a one-time thing,” you tell her once it’s over, and you’re watching a rerun of _Wheel of Fortune_ on her clunky TV that looks like it’s from the 90’s. “I don’t want anything serious.”

She nods like Aranea did, smiles at you, but doesn’t leave. She’s still smiling and you look at the quirk of her lips closely, and you note that the smile is sad, but it’s also vaguely knowing. You wonder what on earth it is she thinks she knows.

Four is a guy. The first guy, to be exact. He works at the flower shop down the street from your apartment, and you buy a bouquet of flowers from him to give to Nepeta for her birthday. He’s a brunette and his head is shaved on the sides, and he has brown eyes like mud puddles after it rains for a whole day. His name is Tavros Nitram, and the second time you visit his flower shop, you buy a bouquet and give them right back to him.

“They’re for you,” you tell him, and the smile he gives you almost makes you feel guilty about the fact that all this is going to be is sex. “You like roses, right?”

He nods, and looks ready to cry. You have sex with him that day, in the back of the flower shop, and he makes you dominate like Aranea did. You don’t think you’re doing a very good job of it, but he’s moaning, so that’s always a good sign. Once you’re both spent you pull away from him and tug your clothes back on. He lays back on the bed, eyes drooping. “Where’y’goin?” He mumbles sleepily, and something pulls in your chest.

“Home,” you say as calmly as you can, but your voice is still wavering. “I hope we can still be friends, Tavros. I’ll buy you as many flowers as you want.”

And then, you’re gone.

Five is a girl again, and you know as soon as you see her it won’t work out. Her name is Kanaya Maryam, she lives in apartment 3B, and she’s going to college for fashion design. Her hair is black and her eyes are jade green, and you listen to her talk about dresses for hours. You take her on two dates with her and have sex with her four times, and when you ask her if she’ll dominate things, she tells you that she should have no problem with that.

“I am a lesbian, you know,” she says after the final time, curled against your chest. You think it’s endearing how she speaks so properly and punctuates each syllable, but you still can’t see a future with her, and you don’t love her. “I am simply lonely, you see. For I cannot seem to find a girlfriend who treats me correctly. I think that you may be lonely, too, John. And that is why you sleep with so many people. You refuse to trust one singular person, and you find the need to break them before they can break you.”

You push her out of the bed because she’s exactly right. She’s the first person who tries to pry into your psyche, but not the last. “I think we should end this,” you say. “Whatever this is.”

She’s stark naked on your cold hardwood floor but she’s smiling up at you and she’s not even trying to cover herself, and she says, “Yes, I am not surprised.”

Six is a guy, and you meet him by chance. You bump into him in the hallway of your sister Jade’s apartment that you’re visiting for the weekend, and he tells you to watch where you’re going because you aren’t the only person in this building. You don’t say anything back and wait behind him while he takes his sweet time getting ice from the machine, and when he turns around, he gives you a knowing smile, like Nepeta once did.

There’s no ice left in the machine. You curse under your breath.

His name is Karkat Vantas, you learn the next day. He has shaggy ginger hair and dull gray eyes, but he isn’t boring by any means. You start talking to him when you go to get ice each night, and by the third and final night he invites you back to his apartment. You send Jade a quick text, telling her that you’re going back to Karkat’s room with him, and she texts back a frowny face.

_John: what?_

_Jade: you need to stop this, it isnt healthy_

_John: i don’t know what you’re talking about._

You turn your phone off and shove it into your back pocket.

You do have sex with Karkat that night, and it’s the first and last time. He dominates you easily, and you can’t say you’re surprised. Dude looks a bit like a professional wrestler, and you wonder, idly, if he works out. You climax first and he follows not soon after, and once you come down from your high he cuddles against your chest. That’s okay. You aren’t sure you’d be able to handle being cuddled by someone else, because you don’t need it. You don’t need comfort. “I hope you know this is just a one-time thing,” you whisper into his hair, and when he nods a few loose strands tickle your nose. “I’m so sorry.”

He nods again. “I know. Jade told me.”

You fall asleep with him in your arms, and when you wake up the clock on the bedside table blares the time 2:30 AM at you in bold red letters. You slip your arms from around Karkat and get dressed as quietly as possible, and then you turn your phone back on. A thousand texts from Jade flood the device as soon as it’s on, but you don’t check any of them.

You need to take a walk.

The seventh is a girl. Her name is Rose Lalonde, and she works at the library a few blocks away from Jade’s apartment. She has straight blonde hair that curls around her chin, violet eyes that burn into your very soul, black lipstick, and a tattoo on her neck of Scorpio. You take her on six dates, a record amount, and only have sex with her one time.

You dominate physically, but you aren’t really the one in control. She runs her fingertips through your hair, down your arms, over your ass, and you shiver. “Why do you do this?” She whispers, like it’s some kind of secret that you’re fucked in the head and have trust issues. You don’t answer her question. You won’t give her the satisfaction. “You have no reason to. You could’ve easily settled down with Vriska, or Nepeta, or Tavros.”

You don’t know how she knows those names. You don’t want to know. “Didn’t see a future with any of them,” you pant quietly, and it’s not a lie. They were all great people, inside and out (Vriska left a little to be desired inside, but you’d liked her all the same) but you couldn’t see yourself, ten years from then, married to them with kids running around. “I loved who they were, but I didn’t love them.”

“Mm,” Rose hums, tangling her fingers in your hair. She pulls you into a slow kiss, and you hate it, you hate it because it shows love, because it shows trust, and you yank back hard enough to give yourself whiplash. She raises an eyebrow. She doesn’t look hurt, like Nepeta or Tavros would’ve, if you’d done that. She doesn’t look angry, like Vriska or Karkat would’ve. She looks analytical. She looks like she always does. “Is it the aspect of trusting and loving someone that gets under your skin, John? Do you have to break things off before you get hurt?”

You freeze, because she’s too close. She’s too close to being right, too close to you, and you have half a mind to pull out of her but you _don’t_. You’re thrusts are shallow, but she doesn’t seem to mind, judging by the small moans and pants she lets free here and there. “That’s it, then. You’re afraid if you don’t end things you’ll be left broken in the end.”

“You’re wrong,” you say. Your voice is hoarse, and even to you it sounds like a blatant lie. “Wrong, wrong, wrong. I’m not afraid of being hurt. Maybe you are. Maybe you’re projecting onto me.”

Rose’s lips curl up in a small smirk. It’s almost condescending. “What big words, John,” she says, and you thrust hard enough that she gasps girlishly. “You’ll have to trust someone, one of these days, you know. You can’t keep doing this to yourself. To other people.”

You throw your head back when you finish, and she leans up and you feel her lips brush against your ear, and she says, “I think you’d like to meet my brother Dave.”

;;

Meet Rose’s brother Dave, you do.

He looks down at you, because you’re only five feet tall and he has to be at least six feet tall, and you feel even smaller than you actually are under his stare. His name is Dave Strider, he tells you in a low voice accompanied by a twang that isn’t exactly unpleasant, and you reach out and shake his hand. “John Egbert,” you reply. He has blonde hair and pale skin and a dusting of freckles over the spots of his cheeks you can see, because the rest of his face is taken up by a pair of shades.

He asks you on a date, and you say, “You don’t have to do this. Just because Rose said.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Who said I’m doin’ this because Rose said so?”

You have no reply to that.

You lose track of the amount of dates you go on with him. You don’t have sex until a month after you’ve already gone on more dates then you can count on both hands, and he asks you if you’d rather he dominate or you. You shake. You’ve never been asked that before. You’re always commanded to be dominant, or told to be submissive. “Uh, well. I don’t like to dominate.”

He nods. “Bottom it is, then. Slick your fingers and get ‘em all up in your own business, unless you’d like me to do it for you. Rose told me you’re all fragile and shit in more complicated words than the ones I just used, so I can’t rush into shit, but it’s your choice and not hers.”

You gulp. You never...you aren’t used to this, to the way he’s looking at you like you’re something breakable, to the loving look in his red eyes when he sweeps them over your body. You squirm because it’s all so _unusual._ “You can do it.”

You hand the lube back to him, and he nods. He goes slow, and you hate it, you hate slow, you want it to be fast, hard, _rough_. You can’t have it slow, because slow means love, slow means trust, and soon you’re crying into the pillow. “Hey, now. No tears while my fingers are in your ass unless it’s about my fingers in your ass hurting you.”

You don’t want to laugh, but you can’t help it, and you do anyway. You’re still letting out a few giggles when he slips a second finger in, and you gasp and bite down on the sheets. He works in and out of you slowly, and you’re crying again, because _no no no_ , it can’t be slow, it _can’t be._ You need it fast, you don’t love Dave, you don’t trust him.

He adds a third finger and pushes against something that makes you keen quietly. “Prostate,” he says. “Knew I’d find the sucker.”

When he replaces his fingers with his dick, you tell him to go fast. You tell him to slam you into the mattress, to show no mercy. He only shakes his head and smiles, knowingly, like Rose does, like Nepeta did. “No, John. Because I love you.”

You’re shaking and crying and your arms are wrapped around his neck, your face is tucked away in his neck, and he’s rubbing circles on your back. “Y’alright, John. It’s fine. You can trust me, you can love me. It’s okay.”

It’s all so slow, all too slow, and the world around you crumbles until there’s nothing but you and Dave.

You’re still crying, sobbing, but you press your lips to his and mumur softly, “I love you. I trust you.”

He nods, and kisses the corner of your mouth. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> if you don't know what this is, then don't ask me "what is this?" because neither do i.
> 
> title is from "me without you (all i ever wanted)" by all time low.
> 
> also: the scorpio tattoo that rose has is actually a hint at rose/aranea, a ship that i adore dearly. in technicality rose cheated on aranea with john, but. that's irrelevant, and no one caught the subtle hint i'm sure.
> 
> my tumblr is darkwinterwriter and i take prompts. just so you know.


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